We had already had a brief discussion on our blog about Fr Kramer’s belief that the election of Pope Francis was invalid, so we decided to follow the advice of most exasperated drunks on the receiving end of a wifely lecture and “give it a rest.”

Then yesterday, the following email arrived from Fr Kramer so we thought it would be worth posting on the blog (with his permission) for the purposes of airing the issues. Nobody should jump to the conclusion that Catholic Truth is alleging that Pope Francis is not the pope. We’re merely of the opinion that it is important not to ignore contentious claims just because they are contentious. Your thoughts on the information in the email – now blog article – below, will be welcome.

Father Paul Kramer writes…

Some people might question the report of Alberto Villasana — in fact some Opus Dei types are already doing that. In fact, long before Benedict’s announcement of impending resignation, a close personal friend of mine, the late Mons. Mario Marini, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission «Ecclesia Dei», informed me of the well organized plot in Rome, in the Northern Italian bishoprics, and in the French hierarchy, to pressure and coerce Pope Benedict to resign. From the beginning the Modernist progressives wanted him out. Cardinal Daneels publicly expressed his displeasure with the election of Cardinal Ratzinger immediately after the cardinals elected him. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor likewise made the very telltale remark that same day, saying, “We didn’t get our man.” The one he referred to as “our man” was Mario Jorge Bergoglio SJ.

Similarly for a long time as Pope John Paul II’s pontificate dragged on for longer years than expected, there was a movement among the progressivists to pressure him to resign. Cardinal Wojtyla was not their first choice in the 1978 conclaves. The first choice to emerge among the progressivists was Card. Sergio Pignedoli, and among the conservatives, Giuseppe Card. Siri. Pignedoli and Baggio both wanted to be pope, but it was clear already before the conclave began that Baggio would not be able to garner enough votes to be the no. 1 candidate of the ptogressivists. (Pathetically, and almost comically, Card. Gabrielle-Marie Garrone complained that none of the newspapers even mentioned him as a papabile.) Neither Siri nor Pignedoli could garner enough votes to be elected in the first and second ballots, but by the second ballot, Cardinal Luciani was in contention, so on the third ballot, the compromise candidate, Albino Luciani was elected. A fourth ballot was held to make it unanimous. I know this to be a true account because I heard with my own ears the “indiscretion” of one of the cardinal electors immediately after the conclave as soon as he returned to the college where he was lodging. There definitely was no “mistake” (as Wikipedia claims) in the Burke-Young tally of the voting in the August 1978 conclave: Luciani already won the papacy on the third ballot, but he himself insisted on a fourth ballot, which unanimously elected him.

Almost immediately upon assuming the papacy, John Paul I’s pontificate was quickly turning into a potential catastrophe for ecclesiastical Freemasonry. He was going to purge the Vatican bank and remone it from Masonic control under Bishop Paul Marcinkus, and he announced to Cardinal Villot his intention to remove the three of the highest ranking Masonic prelates (Villot himself, Casaroli and Card. Ugo Polletti) from the Roman Curia and replace them with conservatives. About an hour later, Pope Luciani was dead. His body was discovered the following morning. The murder of the pope was carried out by P2 Freemasons. When Roberto Calvi threatened Licio Gelli to disclose the P2 involvement in Luciani’s murder, the order was given to kill Calvi. Already, three days before the death of John Paul I, Archbishop (and future Cardinal) Eduard Gagnon had said to Fr. Mario Marini, “They’re going to kill this pope. He is trying to make too many changes, and too quickly.” Three days later, Marini called Gagnon after having just learned of the death of Pope Luciani — Marini asked Gagnon, “Do you remember what you told me three days ago?” Archbishop Gagnon replied, “I remember very well, and they did it.”

Archbishop Gagnon not only predicted the murder of Pope John Paul I, but he also predicted the election of Cardinal Wojtyla as a compromise candidate in the second 1978 conclave. On the evening just after the election of Wojtyla, I was having dinner with Archbishop Gagnon, Fr. Marini, and some other clerics and religious familiar to all of us at a restaurant in the Monteverde section of Rome. Gagnon described how he had been having his dinner at a different restaurant in the city center the previous evening, when some journalists spotted him and asked him about the likely outcome of the conclave. The juornalists were mentioning all the names of the papabili that were floating around in the press & media, and brought up the name of the Brazilian (heretic) Card. Aloisio Lorscheider as a possible compromise candidate. Upon hearing the speculation about a possible compromise candidate, Gagnon said to them, “If a compromise candidate will be elected, the one to watch for is Cardinal Wojtyla.” After relating this to us, Gagnon then said with a smile, “I won’t be going back to that restaurant too soon.” So, John Paul II was not the choice of the progressivists in 1978, he was not “their man”, but a compromise candidate acceptable to both sides. After some years, when it became clear that in moral and disciplinary matters John Paul would not budge from the traditional position, and he would seek a rapproachment with the SSPX, rather than a hard line, the progressivists grew increasingly impatient with him, and set in motion the movement to oust him. John Paul II even said while visiting Ancona around 1995 or 1996 that he was not leaving and would stay put. Back then, “their man” was the other Jesuit heretic, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini SJ. The Wojtylian pontificate lingered on and on as Cardinal Martini became old and decrepit (nearly 80 years old) when John Paul II finally died. Whereas in the 90s, in diplomatic circles and where the “good and the great” meet, when Martini was present, index fingers discreetly pointed him out as the next pope. By the time Pope Wojtyla died in 2005, it was too late for Martini — the ‘powers that be’ now wanted the younger Jesuit (heretic), Bergoglio to succeed the Polish pope. However, too many non-European cardinals rallied behind Ratzinger after his funeral homily for John Paul II, so they still didn’t get their man — they got the hated “German Shepherd”, also known as “God’s Rotweiller”, Joseph Ratzinger.

After Pope Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum, freeing the celebration of the traditional Latin liturgy so hated by the progressivists, and after backtracking on some progressive positions of Vatican II, and reforming the liturgy of the Mass rite of Paul VI along conservative lines, the progressivists led by ecclesiastical Masons were determined to oust him. It even reached the point that death threats were transmitted to him. I was informed by a cleric close to Pope Benedict about the threats well before Benedict announced his resignation. So, I had no difficulty believng the reports of Fr. Santiago (a personal collaborator of Pope Benedict) and Alberto Villasana about the coercion, threats and pressures to oust Pope Benedict. Now that Freemasonry has “their man” at the top of the Vatican, we can expect to eventually hear a dissenting reaction from Pope Benedict and his followers, as Francis pursues the Masonic policy of the utter demolition of Catholicism and a radical reform of the Church that would transform it into a Masonic “dogma free Christianity”, and merge it into intercommunion with the other denominations and non-Christian religions. Meanwhile, there is growing awareness among Catholics that “Francis” is increasingly manifesting himself to be exactly what St. Francis of Assisi foretold in his deathbed prophecy — “uncanonically elected”, and, “not a true pastor but a destroyer.” END

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“In fact, long before Benedict’s announcement of impending resignation, a close personal friend of mine, the late Mons. Mario Marini, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission «Ecclesia Dei», informed me of the well organized plot in Rome, in the Northern Italian bishoprics, and in the French hierarchy, to pressure and coerce Pope Benedict to resign.”

That statement appears at the beginning of Fr Kramer’s email and is sensational in its own right and the rest of it is breath-taking.

I remember this question about Pope Francis’s election being raised in another thread but, to be honest, I dismissed it then as being poppycock.

Now I’m wondering. I won’t take the view that he’s not the pope but my mind is more critical about him and his election than it was before. I’m looking forward to reading what others think.

Here’s the big problem I always have with this kind of thing – how much is fact and how much of it is speculation?
If A says C is going to kill B and B turns up dead that doesn’t prove A was correct.
I don’t trust circumstantial evidence because I know people who can “prove” the world is flat.
So where’s the eyewitnesses who have sworn statements in all of this? Pope Benedict would have to come out and make a public statement saying his resignation was untruthful. Various Cardinals would have to make public declarations and would also have to have been eyewitnesses.
The devil can be just as effective through appearances. He can make the Pope very scandalous and he can bring up lots of hearsay and apparent evidence in order to cause good Catholics to reject the Pope.

Artificial criteria: nothing short of sworn affidavits will do. By those standards, no probable cause wil ever suffice to even begin an investigation. You obviously wish to protect the guilty for the sake of the comfort of the status quo.

When it comes to deposing popes you better believe I want sworn affidavits. In fact, I wouldn’t even go where you have gone if I had a dozen such affidavits. No, I’ll let you get on as Witchfinder General while I get on with just being a Catholic.

When we discussed this on another thread some time ago, I posted a comment from a traditional priest (SSPX) who is not in the UK or Ireland but in his part of the globe, he has both feet on the ground.

This is what he contributed to the blog debate:

• The conclave is secret, we do not know what goes on there, therefore it is never possible for the Catholic faithful to have the same certainty (because I saw it with my own eyes) that a cardinal in the conclave will have. What is the sign that the ordinary Catholic person needs? That he is accepted and presented by the Cardinals as pope and accepted by the universal Church as such.

• It is impossible for us to judge that Pope Benedict’s resignation was not valid: it had all the hallmarks of being a free act, therefore, we must presume it was free and continue to presume it until there is proof to the contrary. Just like a marriage is assumed valid, unless it is proven not to be. Therefore Fr. Kramer must produce valid and incontrovertible proof before he or we can act on it.

• We cannot use the private revelations/prophecies to prove that this is the antipope foretold. They may refer to Francis I or they may refer to Francis XXI who may be much worse. We can only say that this is the antipope when there is unassailable evidence that he is not the pope, then we can apply the prophecy to him. It is not proven that a pope who utters heresy is not pope, but I think Fr. Kramer agrees with us on that one – it is not the root of his argument. END.

I really think Father SSPX covered the key issues there, Catholic Priest, and I honestly do not see how we can ignore the points he made. We cannot decide for ourselves that we don’t recognise Pope Francis, whose election has been accepted by the conclave cardinals and the entire Church. There isn’t any mechanism to allow us to put us all out of our misery ( so to speak!) and elect a new Pope – if I’d been asked for my opinion in the first century, I’d certainly have suggested that there be such a mechanism, but there you go, who listens to moi. Don’t answer that.

I have presented arguments against the validity of the resignation of Benedict XVI which Fr. SSPX refuses to address. His remarks about private revelations are an utterly dishonest attempt to misrepresent my position. Nowhere do I appeal to any private revelation as the basis for rejecting the invalid resignation of Pope Benedict and rejecting the claim to validity of Bergoglio’s counterfeit pontificate. Fr. SSPX needs to get serious in his arguments or stop wasting my time.

I agree with what you say and I agree we definitely mustn’t reject the Pope but I think that comes across in the introduction. That’s not the purpose of this thread, to make us reject the Pope, but it’s already being discussed out there so we might as well know what the arguments are.

It’s quite well known that Fr Kramer has friends in high places in Rome, and so it follows that he’s been told things that the rest of us would never know.

What makes me believe that a lot of it, most maybe, maybe all of it is true, is the fact that Pope Benedict chose to keep wearing the white and his title of Pope instead of going back to being Cardinal Ratzinger dressed in the black which the earliest commentators said he would. Was that a signal? I’m not sure but I’m not dismissing the information either.

I do agree that this information should be handled with extreme care but I found this particular sentence about Pope John Paul I very convincing:

“Luciani already won the papacy on the third ballot, but he himself insisted on a fourth ballot, which unanimously elected him.”

I say that it was convincing because of the reports in the Catholic press at the time of his death that Sr Lucia of Fatima had asked him to go to see her when he was still an Archbishop. He took his brother with him but his brother waited outside and said that when the Archbishop came out from his meeting with Sr Lucia, his face was ashen white and he was obviously shaken. Whatever she told him, and taking note of that ask for a recount when he was elected pope in 1978, it has a ring of truth about it that he would ask for a recount. I read the book by David Yallop, “In God’s Name”, investigating the murder of Pope John Paul I, which was very convincing also. Shocking as Fr Kramer’s email is, I personally think there is a lot of truth in it.

However, I think there is no point in worrying about whether Pope Francis is properly elected or not. He is recognised as the Pope and we have to do the same, while refusing to accept his errors as has often been said on this blog.

Josephine,
What about all those who claim that wasn’t Sr. Lucia we were seeing? Marian Horvat writes about it quite alot and she’s a very intelligent person. I have to admit it looks like two different nuns.
For the ordinary Catholic I don’t think it would matter if we were fooled from time to time or even quite a lot in all of this post conciliar confusion. All we have to do is to keep the Faith.

I have been very hesitant to take part in discussions like these. However, there does seem to be growing numbers of people who are now questioning this business. I must admit that I have lost some faith in Fr Kramer since he supported the “rebels” of the SSPX, but he’s written lots of material on the Mass and Fatima that I respect, so I cannot automatically dismiss this.

Now, I must say that I cannot accept that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid. I think either only the legitimate authorities can declare that. Having said that, I don’t think we should shy away from discussing what others are saying, even if they are wrong. Goodness, we would never discuss anything if we only spoke about what we believed. We discuss the view of Monsignor Basil Loftus et al and we certainly don’t agree with them.

However, something is not quite right. with this business. I heard Fr Kramer saying in 2009 that Pope Benedict XVI himself felt he would be killed. Now we have a pope resigned, but still dressing like a pope and living in the Vatican! That’s just not right.

And what of the SSPX situation? Pope Benedict XVI did everything he could to try to bring about a reconciliation. Then out of the blue, new conditions were placed on a reconciliation. I think the situation was taken out of his hands. He was the best pope we have had in decades, but he wasn’t Traditional and he wasn’t strong. His enemies were too powerful.

I definitely think there’s a strong link here to Fatima and the Third Secret. “The Bishop dressed in white”? “We had the IMPRESSION it was the Holy Father”. I think it’s too early to say HOW these events all tie in with the Third Secret, but I definitely think they do.

I agree with everything you say and it was a great pity that Father took the side of the SSPX rebels against Bishop Fellay. He has lost a lot of credibility due to that.

I was re-reading the letter to Pope Benedict from Alberto Vilasana at the top of the page, and was struck by this quote:

“St. Francis of Assisi said: “There will be a pope canonically elected not to cause a great schism”. And Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Augustinian religious, said: “I saw a strong opposition between two popes, and saw how dire the consequences of the false church (…) This will cause the greatest schism that has been seen in the world “.

I know that these are private revelations and we don’t need to heed them but it’s quite perturbing that they seem to fit exactly what is happening in our times.

I agree most of all with Petrus. But then the devil can cause all of this to confuse Catholics. He can insinuate that it was a good idea for Pope Benedict to keep wearing white. He knows the vision, too.
The devil likes to cause confusion.

Merry Christmas and Happy and blessed New Year to all! I have been busy during the last few days with Christmas and my family, or I should have answered some previous posts. This one, however, I cannot let ride.

I wrote extensively on sedevacantism during the 1980s and 1990s, publishing one paper in the Angelus, the US District’s magazine. In all my research I have learned a few things which I would like to share in order to quell the nonsense found in Father Kramer’s letter. If the Editor will explain the procedure to me, I may also post my papers on this topic where they can be conveniently read.

1. No matter who was conniving Pope Benedict’s resignation at whatever level, in the end he acted of his own freewill. He, despite threats, still had the power to say NO and to remain pope. He himself chose instead to resign. Thus his resignation is a valid act.

2. I do not know much about St. Francis prophecy about an uncanonically elected pope. But I do know that as long as the cardinal electors vote freely, then even if they are liberals or even excommunicates, the election is considered valid till proven otherwise. And who inside the conclave is going to give us proof like that? Who is going to be able to prove the bad intention of a majority of cardinal electors? In addition, the entire Church has accepted Francis as the sovereign pontiff. There has been no serious doubt thrown on his election by any credible authority. This confirms his election.

3. We are faced with a liberal pope, one who is true to the tenets of modernism. According to St. Robert Bellarmine:

“Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls…or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior” (Michael Davies, Liturgical Revolution: Vol. III: Pope Paul’s New Mass (Dickenson, TX: Angelus Press, 1980), p. 602, emphasis mine).

We must then join wholeheartedly into the new Rosary Crusade in order to bring down the graces necessary for the pope to convert and the Church to be returned to sanity. Nothing is beyond the power of Our Lady, and no problem is too big to be solved by her Rosary (said Sister Lucia herself). Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us sinners!

Welcome back! Great to hear from you again and I return your Christmas and New Year greetings with (Jingle) bells on!

Regarding posting your papers – if you email them to me, I can post them as a blog thread, if that is what you mean. Depending on length, it may be better to send me a condensed version, suitable for a blog discussion – although two things need to be said: firstly, we covered sedevacantism quite extensively on our old blog to completely rule it out and secondly, Father Kramer is adamant that he’s not advocating sedevacantism, he is saying that Pope Benedict remains the Pope, due to the (in his view) un-canonical election of Pope Francis.

Your remarks about the resignation of Pope Benedict are spot on – while acknowledging that he was no doubt under pressure, and “forced” to resign in much the same way as someone in the workplace feels they need to resign because colleagues make it virtually impossible for them to do their job, nevertheless, in the end, as you rightly say, the decision was his. The news of his resignation came just as we were about to go to press in March 2013, so – my editorial already written – I had to make room for a short commentary on the back page. You can read it here…

I would add what I usually do, when speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation that, more than anyone else in the conclave that elected him, he knew the dire state of things in the Vatican. As head of the CDF he knew who was who and what was what. His plea (on election) that we should pray for him that he would not flee for fear of the wolves, shows that he was fully aware of what lay in wait for him. He’d also read the Third Secret of Fatima. So, if he did not intend to earn his title as “God’s Rottweiler” he should have refused the office. To accept it and then fail to exercise his papal authority might be fairly described as inexcusable, certainly in human terms. What would we think of a CEO in any major company who, on taking up his position, knowing that he was facing an undisciplined workforce, key figures ready to bully him, and, then, when the going got too tough decided to resign rather than act decisively?

The key point, I think, however, is, that even if everything claimed by Fr Kramer is absolutely true (with jingle bells on!) there is absolutely nothing that we, the faithful, can do, except acknowledge Pope Francis as the elected pontiff and obey his legitimate commands, while refuting his errors and heresies. As St Robert Bellarmine taught and you quote above: “…it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior”.

That tract at the beginning was both interesting and shocking. I believe that something dark and mysterious, dare I say evil occured in the Vatican City in 1978, after the 33 day Pontificate of the Supreme Pontiff, John Paul I. It is unusual that such a healthy man as Albino Luciani should die so suddenly and at such a young age. Also, I have read that His Holiness was terrified of Card. Jean Villot, who dominated him in all matters. Also Villot adulterated the records of the Pope’s death and refused an autopsy. The Pope should have had an autopsy. The death of John Paul II was expected, JPIs wasn’t.

As for Pope Francis, I don’t know the in’s and out’s of this, but if Benedict was coerced into resignation, then I doubt that Pope Francis’s election was valid. Although the Church had situations like this before, and had survived. At the bottom of me, I can’t tolerate this notion as I do not believe Christ would allow an anti-Pope or a heretic to sit on the Chair of St Peter, and inflict heresy on the faithful. Christ will always remain with his Church.

Maybe it would have been better if the Pope had been Italian? Maybe the situation would have been better if the Cardinals had followed Pius XIII’s desire that Giuseppe Siri, Cardinal-Archbishop of Genoa.

The business of “coerced” or “forced” resignation has been clearly explained. No matter how many enemies Pope Benedict had, no matter how much he felt he had to resign, nobody held a gun to his head and he made the decision to resign himself. The fact that he may not have been morally free when he made his decision only adds strength to the argument that he – sadly – lacked the moral fibre necessary to exercise papal authority. Whichever way we look at it, Pope Benedict decided to resign.

Also, the argument is sound which was put forward by traditional priest who emailed a comment when this subject was raised on the other thread; he said that, just as we presume a marriage is valid unless the Church rules otherwise, so it is with the election of Pope Francis. It was conducted in the usual circumstances and was accepted by the Church. We are not authorised to decide otherwise. I may think that half the marriages I know of are not valid in the eyes of God, but I still have to recognise Mr & Mrs So & So, and cannot presume to judge for myself whether or not their marriage is valid.

None of this detracts from the shocking information contained in Fr Kramer’s email. We already know – and have known for a long time – that there are freemasons and homosexuals in positions of influence within the Vatican.

I was amazed myself, some time ago, when I wrote a letter to a top Vatican official (re. the Scots bishops refusal to implement Summorum Pontificum) to receive a most frank and outspoken reply. Unfortunately, he asked me not to publish his letter, and I have respected his wishes, but it was dynamite. He was extremely outspoken about the state of the Church, including the “bad episcopal appointments” in Scotland and assured me that he never missed an opportunity to urge to the Pope “not to flee for fear of the wolves” (to quote the Pope’s own words and the sense of what that official wrote.)

So, it’s an open secret that bad things are going on in the Vatican. The bottom line is that the faithful have the duty to accept the outcome of the conclave simply because we do not have the authority to do otherwise.

After reading one conspiracy theory I was not impressed with what I read when I turned to Catholic Truth. It would seem the Vatican is run by gangsters. Yes, I know there are corrupt people there but they act in much more subtle ways which is why they have lasted for 50 years. If indeed the present Pope is to change dogma why did he join the Roman March for Life just before Christmas. Why was he as appalled as the Archbishop of Cologne when the latter told him about gay adoption. He has already made it clear that when calling the Conference on the Family he is not thinking of changing the teaching that divoreced and remarried people cannot receive communion. It is a long overdue conference since the the Bishops of Europe have made such a mess of marriage. The support of the media is concerting but then maybe just maybe the Pope knows more about American involvement in Argentina`s Dirty War and the White House is afraid. Whatever happens the Church has survived many periods just like the present. She is guided by the Holy Spirit towards renewal and accentuating the positive and letting it be known gives people heart rather than focussing overheavily on the negatives.

‘Why was he as appalled as the Archbishop of Cologne when the latter told him about gay adoption’. I would be interested to read an article about that. Where did you get the info? I know Cardinal Meisner caused a ‘controversy’ by saying the German government should pay German women to stay at home and have more children.

I suppose one reason Fr. Kramer might come to his recent position is because the Italian mystic told him the Pope after the Pope who followed John Paul II would be the one to consecrate Russia? I mean fat chance for Pope Francis to consecrate Russia!
If you still say Pope Benedict is Pope than you can still expect the Pope to follow him to be the one who fulfills Our Lady’s request. I’m not saying this is Father’s main reason but that it would be logical to him.
Did the mystic make it clear that he was speaking prophetically? I remember the initial hopefullness of Fr. Gruner when Pope Francis was elected. But nobody to my knowledge ever demonstrated that the mystic did anything more than give his opinion.

Fr. Kramer pointed out that in no. 247 of Evangelii Gaudium that Bergoglio directly, explicitly and brazenly denied solemnly defined dogma using univocal terms incapable of receiving a “benign interpretation”. Put simply, Bergoglio is s perverse and brazen heretic, no more capable of being pope than was Arius, Luther or Calvin.

I take the quote given by Gandalf above and quoted often on this site:

“Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls…or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior” (Michael Davies, Liturgical Revolution: Vol. III: Pope Paul’s New Mass (Dickenson, TX: Angelus Press, 1980), p. 602, emphasis mine).

Is Fr Kramer the first person to be allowed to over-ride this rule? Is he in a position to judge and depose Pope Francis?

Furthermore, the fact of duress canonically nullifies the juridical act of resignation. However, the clincher is the grammatical error in the key sentence of the “Declaratio”. According to the immemorial custom and jurisprudence of the Roman Curia, which is explicitly upheld in the section of general norms and principles of the 1983 Code, an error in the Latin of a juridical act ipso facto nullifies the act. Hence, it is de jure, a simple matter of law, that Pope Benedict’s resignation was canonically invalid. He, Benedict is the pope. The heretic Bergoglio, whose writings manifest him to be an advocate of uniting all religions, is an infidel eho is unworthy and in fact incapable of occupying the Chair of St. Peter. Bergoglio is the spearhead of the great apostasy foretold at Fatima. “In thd third secret of Fatima, it is revealed, among other things, that the great apostssy in the Church will begin at the top.” – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi

Josephine clearly does not understand Church teaching on this point, and grotesquely misinterprets the doctrine of Bellarmine. Alredy centuries earlier, Pope Innocent taught in Sermo 4 that the pope who “withers away into heresy”, “can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged”. Such a “pope”, as Brlarmine

as Bellarmine teaches, may be judged and punished by the Church. Bellarmine aslo explains in De Romano Pontifice that a manifest heretic cannot validly hold the Petrine office, because to be pope, one must be a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is plainly not a member of the Catholic Church. Bergoglio is no more capable of validly holding ecclesiastical office than is the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is not a matter of exercising authority, but of theological and canonical competency to determine that the apparent pope is not a member of th eChurch but a heretic incapable of holding office. Once it has been determined that the individual in question is not a Catholic, and therefore not a pope, he can be judged and punished by a competent ecclesiastical tribunal.

What are we supposed to do then? Do we stop saying “Pope Francis” and pretend there’s no pope? Pope Benedict said he wouldn’t be speaking out in public, so what do we do? Does anybody tell Pope Francis that we don’t recognise him – I’d like to know the practical details of this.

There is no contradiction. A valid pope cannot be deposed. A manifest heretic cannot be a valid pope, ERGO: a manifestly heretical pope is a counterfeit pope, a false pope who can be judged and deposed.

No, Bellarmine does not refer to a future pope, because, he explains, the Church authorities can “judge and punish” him. It is also quite silly to think that no Church authority would possess the jurisdiction over a counterfeit pope who is in fact a manifest heretic. Once the Church authorities have determined that the “pope” is indeed a manifest heretic, it is thereby determined that he is in fact no pope at all, and as a heretic is incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. So, why should there be any problem about jurisdiction? After all, the Church has the authority to judge heretics, even heretical counterfeit popes like Bergoglio.

With respect, there is one key fault in your argument. Who are the “Church authorities” with the authority and competence to declare that the pope is a manifest heretic? Simply saying “Church authorities” is not good enough.

All we have here is your opinion. You have no authority to declare that Pope Francis is not pope.

If the See of St Peter is impeded, with the “Church authorities” unwilling to declare that the person pretending to be pope is in fact a heretic, doesn’t this indicate that the gates of hell have prevailed? It is nonsensical.

May I suggest that you be more charitable in your writings? It sounds like a bad tempered rant and most unattractive for any Catholic, never mind a priest.

No, Petrus, it’s not my opinion. Robert Bellarmine wrote it. The Holy Inquisition was the competent tribunal in Bellarmine’s time. Today it’s called the CDF. Which tribunal in particular is a matter of special law, but the Church does have tribunals competent to judge and punish heretics (like Bergoglio).

“But we can find proof from many sources,” say the sedevacantists, “that saints and learned theologians hold that the pope can lose his office through personal heresy. Witness St. Robert Bellarmine in De Summo Pontifice:

‘A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction’ [St. Robert Bellarmine, De Summo (Romano) Pontifice as found in Bro. Michael Dimond, OSB, “Has Rome Become the Seat of the Antichrist?” A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, No. 1 (1988), pp. 13-14].

“Likewise many theologians such as Badii and Beste hold the same thing as truth.”

a. First, St. Robert in De Summo Pontifice enumerates five theories on the problem of an heretical pope. Basically, these theories range from the opinion that the pope cannot fall into heresy (defended by Suarez and Billot); to the pope can fall into heresy, but cannot be deposed as pope, but still can be judged once his heresy is “manifest” since he is then no longer pope (defended by Bellarmine). These positions may seem a bit obscure to us now, but we must remember that they were proposed as theories, and theories they remain.

b. Now, a “manifest heretic” is one who has already been judged and declared publicly to have been condemned by the Church. According to Canon 2223 #4:

“As a rule it is left to the discretion of the superior to declare that a penance has been incurred, i.e., to issue a declaratory sentence. However, this sentence must be issued…if the public welfare demands it, for instance, in the case of a corruptor, or briber, or dangerous heretic” [Rev. P. Charles Augustine, O.S.B., A Commentary of the New Code of Canon Law (St. Louis: Herder, 1924), Vol. 8, p. 91,emphasis mine]..

Once again, remember that St. Robert was writing some four hundred years ago. The canonical definition of “manifest” has no doubt changed since the gathering together of the Church’s various codices of law and the promulgation of the New Code by Benedict XV. St. Robert probably understood that the “heretical pope” of theory was to be solemnly admonished by the cardinals and bishops of the Church. Such a thing is not possible given the present circumstances. Likewise, there was no such thing as liberalism at that time, i.e., it would have been inconceivable to him (as to anyone in his century) that there would occur an error which would place people inside the Church in some respects and outside the Church in others.

c. Second, in order for a pope to be judged to have lost his jurisdiction, this declaratory sentence must be issued by his superior. But the pope has no superior on earth. As I demonstrated previously, Vatican I defined what had always been the ordinary teaching of the Church, that the pope is superior to all others and has no overseer.

d. Although, in Bellarmine’s day, it seemed that theologians could hold that the pope could be judged once self-deposed by heresy, it does not seem that this is any longer the case. Since the sixteenth century, we have had the definitions of Vatican I and the promulgation of Canon Law by the Church, with repercussions I have already discussed. Now as theories, the notions noted above could possibly be freely held until such time as the Church defines the matter clearly. But simply because theologians are free to argue the matter does not mean that we can all ignore history and what has been defined. One theological opinion which conflicts with that of sedevacantists is that of E. Sylvester Berry, D.D., in his text The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, under the heading “Loss of the Primacy”:

“(I)f a pope, in his private capacity as an individual, should fall into manifest heresy, he would cease to be member of the Church, and in consequence would also cease to be her supreme pastor. But this is another purely theoretical hypothesis, since no Pope is known to have fallen into heresy, and it is most probable that the vicar of Christ is divinely protected from such misfortune, although the Church has never defined anything in the matter (of papal heresy specifically).
“In case a Pope becomes a scandal to the Church on account of a sinful life, he can and ought to be admonished by the bishops, singly or in council, but they have no authority to depose him. ‘It would be unlawful to go beyond admonition; a change of heart must be left to the Providence of God and sought only by prayer and supplication.” (He then gives a reference to Perrone and Suarez.) [ 6E. Sylvester Berry, D.D., The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise (St. Louis: Herder, 1927), pp. 401-402.]

The term “manifest heretic” as used in the strict sense of canonical usage is also used by ecclesiastical writers in a broader context that is synonymous with the term “public heretic”, in the sense that one is a public or manifest heretic who openly proclaims his heresy; as opposed to the occult heretic who is not manifestly a heretic, because he keeps his heresy hidden.

“(I)f a pope, in his private capacity as an individual, should fall into manifest heresy, he would cease to be member of the Church, and in consequence would also cease to be her supreme pastor. But this is another purely theoretical hypothesis, since no Pope is known to have fallen into heresy, and it is most probable that the vicar of Christ is divinely protected from such misfortune, although the Church has never defined anything in the matter (of papal heresy specifically).”

But Pope Francis has written heresy in his first Apostolic Exhortation # 247 about the Jews and salvation. That’s the point that Fr Kramer made, if my memory is correct, when we discussed this on the other thread and that catholic priest has made above,that made him draw his conclusions about Pope Francis not being pope.

error of judgment in consequence of which a baptized person obstinately denies or doubts a truth revealed by God and proposed by the Church for belief [Rev. Heribert Jone, O.F.M., Cap., J.C.D., Moral Theology (Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop, 1946), p. 71].

Heresy is of two kinds, material and formal.

1. Material heresy is denial of faith as expressed in actions or words, but performed by one not conscious of a ban of the Church.

He sins against faith, gravely or venially according to the degree of negligence but is not a formal heretic who through sinful ignorance does not know that the Church proposes a given truth as divinely revealed (Jone, p. 72).

Examples of material heresy are legion and need not detain us here.

Suffice to say anything that one sees a person do or hears a person say publicly contrary to the Faith is material heresy.

Liberals, socialists and communists are heretics or not, depending upon the extent in which they confess the principles of these parties…Because of their ignorance such people are often in good faith…( Jone, p. 72).

Material heresy can be observed and judged in itself, separated from the person performing materially heretical actions. In other words, without presuming any authority in such cases, we can judge the act itself if it flies in the face of religion. This we can do because we must be able to protect and defend our own faith.

2. Formal heresy is a voluntary and pertinacious denial of the faith, accompanied by ipso facto excommunication.

A) The heresy must be deliberate and conscious, i.e., pertinacious. This means that the heretic must persist in what he erroneously believes even after becoming aware of the sanction of the Church. According to Sacred Scripture(Titus 3:10 ), a warning should be repeated two or three times. Canon Law normally enjoins these warnings on the superior(s) of the transgressor. However, in the case of heresy, punished as it is by a sentence which is latae sententiae, warnings may be omitted since they are considered part of the law itself (cf. Canon 2242:2) [Rev. P. Charles Augustine, O.S.B., A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law (St. Louis: Herder, 1924), Vol. 8, p. 118]. Still, there must in this case be a declaratory sentence, which I shall now treat.

B) Canon 2223:4 enjoins that the excommunication of a heretic latae sententiae must be accompanied by a declaratory sentence.

As a rule it is left to the discretion of the superior to declare that a penance has been incurred, i.e., to issue a declaratory sentence. However, this sentence must be issued…if the public welfare demands it, for instance, in the case of a corruptor, or briber, or dangerous heretic (Augustine, Vol. 8, p. 91, emphasis mine).

We may conclude that, unless such a declaratory sentence is forthcoming from the Church, no one could possibly know who is a formal heretic. That is to say, latae sententiae excommunication for heresy is not presumed without this sentence.

Regarding Judgment:

1. Many sedevacantists seem to believe that the Code of Canon Law applies itself to heretics of whatever rank, without the necessity of an intervention by the lawgiver. This is dangerously similar to the attitude of Protestants toward Sacred Scripture.

(L)aw is not a mere contractural order of things, but a participation in the will of God or Divine Providence, and a breach of it therefore requires the intervention of the lawful custodian and guardian of the law…Only the legitimate authority, as the founder of law and the represenative of the supreme Ruler, is entitled to demand justice and inflict the necessary penalties on transgressors (Augustine, Vol. 8, p. 69).

Hence, it is the Church through the competent authority alone which can issue a declaratory sentence. The above quote shows that canonists automatically assume a living authority, that is, no sede vacante.

2. Those who have the legitimate authority to judge are the bishops, by virtue of their office as successors of the Apostles, and the pope, by virtue of the fullness of Apostolic auhority which resides in him [Robert C. Broderick, ed., The Catholic Concise Encyclopedia (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), p. 52]. Since, humanly speaking, it is impossible for the pope and bishops to hear all the cases which are submitted to them, they can delegate this authority to others in all save the most important cases (Broderick, p. 43).

3. It seems superfluous to note that the laity can only judge what falls within its province. Even in extraordinary circumstances, neither the laity nor the lower clergy may presume to judge prelates, superiors or the Roman Pontiff. St. Thomas teaches that one may resist the commands of superiors which deviate from faith or morals (Summa, IIa, IIae, Q. 104, Art. 5). However, this does not extend to judging the superiors themselves. St. Robert Bellarmine teaches:

Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls…or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior [Michael Davies, Liturgical Revolution: Vol. III: Pope Paul’s New Mass (Dickenson, TX: Angelus Press, 1980), p. 602, emphasis mine].

Sedevacantists who sit in judgment of the pope would do well to remember this rule.

4. Regarding the Roman Pontiff, there is no superior authority to his on earth. Vatican Council I condemned the theory that a general council was superior to the pope [Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 1974), p. 285]. This action only confirmed what previous popes had ruled, e.g., Execrabilis of Pope Pius II, which condemned appeals to councils over the pope [Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: Herder, 1957), p. 232]. It follows inerrantly that no one on earth has authority to judge the pope (cf. Bellarmine).

5. We may conclude that, since only a declaratory sentence makes a person a formal heretic, and since a declaratory sentence must be issued by a superior to the transgressor (Canon 2223:4), and since there is no superior to the pope on earth, therefore the pope cannot be a formal heretic.

It is an error of elementary logic to define a manifest heretic as one upon whom a sentence has been passed by a competent tribunal. Indeed, one is a manifest heretic upon whom the sentence of heresy has been pronounced, but it does not follow logically that a manifest heretic is one upon whom a sentence of heresy has been pronounced. That’s like saying, “Peter is white, therefore white is Peter.” — non sequitur. Bellarmine speaks of “a pope who falls into manifest heresy” -the context clearly refers to a pope eho demonstrates by words and actions that he is a public heretic, and quite obviously does not refer to a pope who has been pronounced a heretic by an ecclesiastical tribunal, since (as Bellarmine himself admits) no tribunal is competent to judge a pope

It is quite pointless for gandalfolorin to quote the 1917 Code — it is no longer in force. One only needs to examine the classroom manuals used in Jesuit institutions to become cognizant of the fact that it is impossible for Bergoglio to be ignorant of the dogma of the revocation of the Jewish Covenant. Bergoglio has publicly manifested brazen eresy as “pope”, but has also done so long before his election. The man is a public heretic because he brazenly denies what he knows to be solemnly defined dogma — and there is no way he can possibly be ignorant of that point. He also quite openly advocates intercommunion between religions — something that only an apostate infidel but no Catholic could ever do.

Fr. Kramer made three points that I repest here – 1) The resignation of Pope Benedict is null & void due to a fault in the Latin which, according to the custom and juridprudence of the Roman Church (explicitly upheld in a the 1983 Code), renders a juridical act null & void. 2) Fr. Kramer has knowledge of death threats from a source close to Pope Benedict, and also Benedict’s collaborator, Fr. Santiago, attests to the duress which canonically nullifies the resignation. 3) Bergoglio was already known to be a public heretic actively working for the demolition of Catholicism and the unification of all religions before his uncanonical election. He is a public enemy of the Catholic Church and therefore incapable of holding

I have been watching your general disrespect towards everyone who disagrees with you and I have to say that I have genuine concerns about your mental health. I would much rather that your behaviour was a result of madness more than badness. I seriously think you should see a doctor because your irrational behaviour is not normal.

I knew about the grammatical error but no one has really written much about it.
Pope Benedict was sure pretty clear that he was not abdicating except by his own free will. So although it seems rather obvious that they were eager to get him out of the way that doesn’t mean he resigned against his will. He’s stated his intent so he’d have to contradict that statement, right? Only he knows.
Was the plot of Windswept House about a push to get Pope John Paul to resign? You guys read it and let me know. 🙂

I agree with you – Pope Benedict resigned of his own free will and seems happy when he meets Pope Francis. People forget that Pope Benedict was not a traditionalist and that he also made heretical statements about salvation and other religions.

I haven’t read Windswept House so can’t answer your question but look forward to reading the answer!

I think Catholic Truth got it right from the start as with Cardinal O’Brien – Pope Benedict had his work cut out to be pope due to the dissenters around him and instead of fighting them and doing his duty, he took the cowardly way out. He didn’t want to be pope so he resigned. There’s no use blaming the people around him. It’s his job to make them toe the line and if he had proof that his life was endangered, there should have been additional security.

Your posts here have been absolutely spot on and written with that charitable objectivity that all Catholics are bound to observe in respect to their superiors.

Catholic Priest,

If your declaration about Pope Francis being deposed and excommunicated was correct, which it is not, then the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church would necessarily be excommunicated and deposed along with him by reason of its collaboration with a “brazen public heretic” and its recognition of Francis as Supreme Pontiff. Not least among the deposed and excommunicated would be those Cardinal electors who voted Bergoglio into the papacy. That situation, in fine, would mean that the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church, which, as you know, is quite impossible.

With respect to the overall tone of your posts about Pope Francis, I have to say that it falls far short of what I would expect of a Catholic priest. You seem to be very angry, which I can understand to some extent but not to the point of a complete loss of all reason. You seem to be too willing to condemn. Isn’t that more Pharisee-like than Christ-like? Whatever happened to Our Lord’s admonition that His disciples be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves? Why can’t you just combat the errors of the Pope with charity and respect as do many Traditional clerics and prelates more eminently qualified than yourself?

Concerning Fr. Paul Kramer

I’m afraid contributors here have to disregard everything Fr. Kramer has to say about the modern Popes. It was not so long ago that he was referring to Pope Paul VI in a most disgraceful manner, again on the basis of rumour and conjecture. He too has succumbed to a spirit of bitterness and a fixation with the letter of Church law as he interprets it. I once had great respect for this priest, but no longer. For me the sedevacantist is equally an obstacle to the salvation of souls as the liberal. The devil is very clever and knows well how to work the passions of men in order to lead them away from their primary duty. Well did St. James observe that “the anger of man worketh not the justice of God.”

Way too many good men have been lost to the dark and bitter spirit of sedevacantism in recent years, a pointless and fruitless doctrine of pride if ever there was one. Perhaps these merciless judges should have stayed a little closer to Our Lord in the tabernacle, if only to acquire a little meekness and humility of heart!

It is an error of elementary logic to define a manifest heretic as one upon whom a sentence has been passed by a competent tribunal. Indeed, one is a manifest heretic upon whom the sentence of heresy has been pronounced, but it does not follow logically that a manifest heretic is one upon whom a sentence of heresy has been pronounced. That’s like saying, “Peter is white, therefore white is Peter.” — non sequitur. Bellarmine speaks of “a pope who falls into manifest heresy” -the context clearly refers to a pope eho demonstrates by words and actions that he is a public heretic, and quite obviously does not refer to a pope who has been pronounced a heretic by an ecclesiastical tribunal, since (as Bellarmine himself admits) no tribunal is competent to judge a pope

In the case of Bergoglio we are not dealing with the case of a pope who falls into heresy, but of an uncanonically elected antipope. The practice, custom and jurisprudence of the Roman Curia is explicitly upheld in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. According to the immrmorial custom and jurisprudence of the Roman Church, an error in the Latin of a juridical act has a nullifying effect. Therefire, canonically Pope Benedict did not validly resign. He is still the pope. “Pope” Frsncis is not the pope,’and he is indeed a manifest heretic eho has done ehat no pope in history has done — he has in univocal terms directly, explicitly and brazenly denied a solemnly defined dogma of faith in no. 247 of Evangelii Gaudium.

No, it does not follow logically that if Francis is excommunicated then all the bishops are likewise excommunicated. Only those bishoos are excommunicated who demonstrate themselves to be manifest heretics in brazen contempt of the defined dogmas of faith.

I due time, many bishops will follow their blind snd heretical antipope into apostasy. Others will wake up and remain Catholic and will withdraw from obedience to the antipope Bergoglio. Eventually a legitimate successor to Pope Benedict will be elected, and Francis will be recognized as the usurping heretic and antipope that he is.

It is pointless to maintain that Benedict freely resigned, since the fact of duress, according to canonical doctrine conditioned his freedom “ex radice” — which canonically nullifies a resignation. Furthermore, as I stated above, the act of resignation was rendered null & void by the error in the Latin. Legally, Pope Benedict’s resignation never happened, just like an invalid marriage that was done under duress and with defective canonical form — NULL & VOID.

What Fr. Kramer said about Paul VI was not based on rumor and conjecture, but was documented by Fr. Luigi Villa. Furthermore, Fr. Kramer knows an eyewitness to Montini’s unnatural vice. To say that Fr. Kramer resorts to rumor and conjecture is mendacious.

We live in confusing times and we cannot be definitive about the claims Father Kramer made. However, if, as Sr. Lucia has told us, we are already in the End Times then this would not be surprising. I mentioned in my book “The Time of Great Tribulation” the theoretical possibility of a false pope when I speculated about what Jesus meant when he spoke of “the abomination of desolation set up in the holy place”. At that time I thought that the holy place could refer either to the temple in Jerusalem or a false Pope in St Peters. Recent events might lead us to consider that this may have already happened. Tied in with this is the prophecy of Daniel which gives a time scale of 70 weeks (years?) from the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That happened with the UN mandate about Palestine in 1947. As I said we cannot be definitive so we have to tread carefully but current events seem to fit in with the predictions so we should at least read the claims of Father Kramer and consider them. Also the angel who gave the prophecy to Daniel told him to seal the words because they were for the time of the End. If we are in the End Times then the Time of Great Tribulation (a time, two times and a half according to St John in the Book of Revelation) is upon us and will usher in the time of satan. Chapter 12 of Revelation predicts the miracle of Fatima (the woman adorned with the sun) followed by the Great Red Dragon (Communism) and battle in Heaven when satan and his angels were cast to the Earth in a great rage “knowing that his time is short”.
As we see events unfold they seem to fit in with the predictions of Jesus and St. Paul and also Catherine Emmerich the nun who around 1820 predicted the “great new Church they were trying to build with their own hands”. She said she did not see a single angel involved in its construction and she mentioned how the Church appeared to be splitting into two camps. If we are in the End Times, the Second Coming of Our Lord is imminent but as St. Paul says it cannot occur before the “man of sin” appears i.e. the anti-christ so we might expect things to get a whole lot worse. satan indeed appears to be taking control of the world. There is a lot to think about and a lot of confusion in this world but as the politicians appear to be on the verge of setting up a new world order (novus ordo) we would expect this to coincide with a new order of mass and the abolition of the perpetual sacrifice which was also prophesied by Daniel in Chapter 9.

Although we are living in the last times of the world (Sr. Lucy), there must come first Our Lady’s triumph and a certain period of peace before the reign of Antichrist occurs. Consequently, the prophecies you quote cannot be for this particular time, even if certain similarities are present. To say that the time of Antichrist is now is surely to deny what Our Lady promised at Fatima, since we know for sure that Antichrist’s reign immediately precedes the end of the world and the last judgement.

Besides that, I don’t think it’s healthy for Catholics to overly weigh and speculate on these matters. Scriptural prophecies concerning the last times are quite obscure in their wording, to the extent in fact that even the Church’s most eminent theologians have struggled to make sense of them in relation to specific events for specific times.

I remember a wise priest once saying that regardless of these things, our world will most surely come to an end on the day we die and so we should look to that certainty and prepare for it rather than waste time speculating on matters we cannot possibly predict with any accuracy. Anyway, did not Our Lord say that not even the angels in heaven know when the end will come?

It’s actually quite a depressing subject and we Catholics are supposed to be joyful souls. My approach is to leave these matters in God’s hands knowing that He is still in charge of His Church.

As for Fr. Kramer. Well, I’m sorry to say that I refuse to consider anything he says or writes because he conducts himself with anger and disrespect towards those in authority over him. When I see that bitter spirit in anyone I immediately put them to one side and ignore them. It’s only a dangerous curiosity, in my opinion, that would make anyone want to continue to listen to him. I think St. Paul touched on this when he wrote about the last times and those who would having itching ears and turn away from the truth unto fables.

Besides that, Fr. Kramer’s claims come with his personal assurance that he has evidence that none of the rest of us can see. He can’t produce that evidence in any solid form, so all we end up with are a series of very serious allegations on the basis of rumour and his word. It’s not even remotely enough for me to start deposing Popes. No, best thing for Catholics to do is to completely disregard Fr. Kramer and all other conspiratorial nuts.

I agree with you entirely. The good thing about having this thread is that this theory can now be completely discarded as lunacy thanks to the first class comments of those who have taken part. The holes in the argument of the quasi-sedevacantists are there for all to see.

By the way, I meant to say earlier, Fr Kramer may like to claim that he is not a sedevacantists but that is exactly what he is. Pope Francis is the true pope; Benedict XVI isn’t, therefore anyone who claims thatFrancis is not pope is a sedevacantist.

Athanasius proves only that he is a bigot who can spout off his gratuitous conclusions and gratuitously reject theologically and canonically formulated arguments. His claim that Fr. Kramer is a sedevacantist is as malicious as it is absurd on its face. Athanasius resorts to gratuitous ridicule and slander — the preferred tactic of Communists and Masons.

At least I produce reasoned arguments. Athsnasius gratuitous beliefs. That is not name calling but it is pointing out an egregious example of bigotry.Petrus refuses to acknowledge this plainly evident fact, and hypocritically calls it “name calling”. You reply to theological and canonical arguments with the patently fallacious claim that I resort to name calling, as if name calling were something that logically invalidates a theological argument — what patent hypocrisy.

Thanks for your candor. You are indeed a bigot, not for your opposition to sedevacantism (which I share), but for your utterly mendacious and hypocritical attempt to tar me with the sedevacantist brush. Benedict is still pope. His resignation is, according to the jurisprudence, practice, and custom of the Roman Church, null & void. Long live the Pope! Our Holy Father Benedict XVI. Only a lying and bigotted hypocrite could attempt to seriously call me a sedevacantist. You people sre pathetically desperate. People in the most martyred churces in Syria and mainland China are i

Ok, Catholic Priest, let’s just call you a schismatic, then, as we would anyone who denies the legitimate pope. And please, spare me the childish nonsense about Benedict having been forced into resignation. He and the new pope are always having cosy get-togethers.

The likes of Fr. Kramer and Catholic Priest only succeed in destroying the Traditional Catholic fight against Modernism. No reasonable person wants to hear the ramblings of conspiracy theorists and self-appointed judges like these men. The problem is that these extremists are wrongly associated in the minds of well-meaning modern Catholics with Tradition and this discredits the Traditionalist fight for the faith. As I said, the devil is very clever.

After producing precise canonical and theological arguments, against the validity of Benedict’s resignation and Francis’ election, desperate and deceptive souls bring out the red herring of sedevacantism — how pathetic and indeed mendacious.

All you have produced are sinful accusations based on your own personal conclusions and deductions. I think you have lost sight of the primary purpose of your ordination and have become a scandal to Catholic souls. Wallow in conspiracy and misery if you will but leave other souls in peace. The crisis in the Church is difficult enough without you adding to the misery with your proud declarations of non serviam.

You have not proven that Pope Benedict resigned under duress. I watched the TV pictures of his resignation and he seemed to me to be perfectly calm when he declared that he was abdicating of his own free will in accordance with what he believed to be God’s will for him. There was not even a hint of pressure when he made this clear declaration.

As for the typo in the official document that you keep going on about, well it’s only a typo! God reads the intention of the person, not the official script. It seems to me that sedevacantists, like the Pharisees in Our Lord’s time, are great legalists, always on the hunt for evidence based on the letter of the law while ignoring the more important spirit of the law. Pope Francis is the legally elected Pope of the Church whether you like it or not. So get your head out of the sand of legal fantasy and start dealing with the issues as they exist in reality. Your present course only takes you out of the fight for Tradition since most rational people will run a mile from you when you start with all that conspiracy garbage.

Besides all this, Pope Benedict, like John Paul II before him, said and done many things during his Pontificate that could easily be construed as acts of “brazen manifest heresy,” which, according to you, are sufficient to tip him out of the Chair of Peter. So where does this lunacy end?

Athanasius judges by criteria of mere superficial appearance, but not according to facts that have emerged such as the testimony of Fr. Ssntisgo, the report of yhe theologian Alberto Villasana, and Fr.Kramer’s sources. There is a preponderance of evidence already establishing duress, but the defect in yhe Latin is proof beyond sll shadow of doubt that Benedict is still the pope snd Bergoglio an antipope.

The defect in the Latin proves nothing other than that a clerical error occurred. You insist on this kind of legalistic straw man when you know full well that Our Lord reads the hearts of men, not the finer details of printed documents. As I have already stated, Benedict himself very calmly declared that he was standing down “of his own free will.” No amount of nonsense from your tick-tack sources can alter that fact. You’re on a definite loser with this one!

It is only an obtuse and sclerotic mind like that of Athanasius which willfully chooses to ignore the critical distinctions between the heretical ooinions of the conciliar popes, which are sufficiently indirect and implicit, or ambiguous enough to be susceptible of a ‘benign interpretation’, ehereas Bergoglio has directly, explicitly and brazenly denied fogma in starkly univocal terms which do not admit a ‘benign interpretation. You argue fishonestly snd in bad fsith.

I, like Fr. Kramer have repetedly mentioned this critical distinction between the heretical statements of conciliar popes, and the brazen heresy and contemt for dogma demonstrated by Bergoglio. Athanasius conve niently and deliberately ignors this critical distinction that Fr. Kramer and I have repeatedly emphasized.

Don’t be ridiculous, heresy is heresy. Pope John Paul II kissed the Koran, received the mark of a Hindu deity on his head, participated in pagan animist rites in Togo and was architect of the Assisi syncretist gatherings, all of which things offend against the First Commandment and the infallible dogma ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus.’

Likewise, Pope Benedict XVI advocated separation of Church and State, promoted John Paul’s Assisi scandals and addressed both a Jewish and a Muslim audience with the quote “we are all the children of Abraham.” Once again, such a statement is contradictory of the infallible dogma extra ecclesiam…

The rest of us see no difference between the errors of these Popes and the errors of Francis, who, like them, is a spiritual son of the heretic Henri de Lubac.

Where we differ from you, however, is that we are not prepared to declare bad will on the part of these Popes, but rather to view their falling into these errors as part of the “diabolical disorientation” spoken of by Sister Lucy as the punishment of the Third Secret of Fatima. Also, we prefer, unlike you, to listen to the plea of little Jacinta of Fatima to pray much for the Holy Father.

The difference between us, then, is that you and your ilk condemn the Pope and seek to depose him while we respectfully resist his errors and pray for him. We have a completely different spirit to you.

What you’re really saying above is that we need to usurp God’s authority in regard to Pope Francis and start making judgments on the disposition of his soul. But we’re not allowed to do that with any soul, no matter how malicious we may think him to be. Absolutely no one, not even you, can possibly know for sure that Pope Francis acts maliciously. Only God can know such a thing. That being the case, you are obliged, like the rest of us, to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his errors to be non-malicious.

There is one case of a Pope being condemned and excommunicated, and that rests with Pope Honorius I.
This Pope was condemned and excommunicated by the 6th General Council in 680 for heresy. The heresy in question was monotheism which claimed Jesus Christ as divine-human, rather than the orthodox belief of phyeis, that is He is both fully God and fully man.

Though I could also mention Pope Liberius 352-66, though NOT condemned and excommunicated, but was the first Pope since Saint Peter never to be canonised. He reigned at the height of the Arian Crisis, during which a large majority of the Church believed that Jesus was not God but only a man. The Arian heresy was fought by Saint Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who Consecrated Bishops without permission.

Pope Liberius rather than defending Athanasius signed a document that supported those against him and condemned Athanasius. Nearing the end of his Pontificate he recanted his signature and reinstated Athanasius. While Pope Liberius did NOT embrace the heresy himself, he did not use his power fully to put an end to it. His reign did nothing to stop the confusion spreading throughout the Church.

Gandalfolorin, thank you for your posts, and it did make me wonder about previous Popes.

The case against Pope Liberius is very weak and controversial. There is no real evidence to suggest that this Pope did succumb to the Arian will. We know he went into exile for several years for his support of St. Athanasius, but it remains uncertain as to whether he eventually capitulated under pressure. If he did succumb, then it was due more to human weakness than bad will.

As regards Pope Honorius. He was indeed condemned and excommunicated by the 3rd Council of Constantinople, which was convoked under the authority of Pope Agatho in 680AD. Honorius’ sentence was declared posthumously against him by the Council Fathers, but only received juridical weight when it was ratified in writing by Pope Leo II, Agatho’s successor.

It should be mentioned also that Honorius was not excommunicated for heresy, since he had never personally held the Monothelite error. No, he was excommunicated for silencing opposition to the Monothelites for the sake of peace, thereby opening the Church’s doctrine to corruption.

Here’s the relevant quote from Pope Leo’s letter: “We anathematise the inventors of the new error, that is, Theodore, Sergius, … and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted.”

I wonder what Leo would have to say about the post-conciliar Popes and their dalliance with ecumenism and inter-religious initiatives!

“If your declaration about Pope Francis being deposed and excommunicated was correct, which it is not, then the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church would necessarily be excommunicated and deposed along with him by reason of its collaboration with a “brazen public heretic” and its recognition of Francis as Supreme Pontiff. Not least among the deposed and excommunicated would be those Cardinal electors who voted Bergoglio into the papacy. That situation, in fine, would mean that the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church, which, as you know, is quite impossible.”

I have heard it stated elsewhere that the Sedevacantist position, ie a heretic Pope therefore no Pope, implies that the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church. Can you, or someone explain this? I have never quite understood why a heretical pope, or indeed a succession of them, would mean that the Gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church.

Also, could the term ‘judge’ mean something quite specific, in that the person suspected of heresy would have to be confronted, asked to retract their errors and then a formal judgement made by those with the authority to do so etc etc. Can a lay person, on the other hand, simply entertain ‘pious doubts’, without these becoming a ‘judgement’?

If, as the sedevacantists claim, there has been no pope since Pius XII and, logically, therefore, there never will be a true pope (given that all the candidates are appointees of the “non-popes”) then it seems as clear as day to me that the gates of Hell would have prevailed.

Thankfully, the sedevacantist position is nonsense and so we can discount it. I never cease to be amazed, though, that anyone in his or her right mind would give it a modicum of credence.

Akward customer, Your comments are totally off topic. Your comment on sesrvacantism has nothing to do whatever with the topic of this thread. As they say in Florence, “Cosa c’entra il culo colle Quarant’Ore?”

Okay, the Sedevacantists claim that there has been no pope since Pius XII. That much I understand. But why this should mean that there will never be a true pope is beyond me. I know you say that “all the candidates are appointees of the ‘non-popes'”, but surely new candidates could be appointed.

Neither can I understand why there has to be a leap from ‘no pope since Pope Pius XII’ to ‘no pope ever again’, which would mean that the Gates of Hell had prevailed.

And I especially cannot understand the vehemence with which the Sedevacantist position is opposed. Sorry, but a succession of popes espousing heresy and bringing ruin on the Church is bound to result in people asking awkward questions, especially when the heresies being espoused are so public.

What a pity that Traditionalists are at each others throats over this issue. Couldn’t Traditionalists just agree to disagree on this subject.

How about a ‘Not Proven’ verdict over this issue?

Editor: Awkward Customer, this obviously came in when I was off closing the December threads, so sorry about that. The sedevacantist position is vehemently opposed by any informed Catholic because it is clearly a faith-less position. Look. Our Lady of Fatima spoke at all times of “the Holy Father”. NEVER did she indicate that there would be no pope. That’s enough for me to dismiss sedevacantism if ever I entertained any doubts about it at all, which I don’t. We have a Pope – Pope Francis – and he is a terrible pope – at least to date. Let’s pray for special graces for him in the coming year. Any other attitude is inappropriate, to say the least, for a Catholic.

Please do not assume that a heretic pope automatically equates to no pope, it does not. A pope could conceivably be a material heretic and still be pope, just as a heretic priest can still celebrate a valid Mass and absolve sinners. The sacred office held is greater than the one who holds it. Therefore, no man can nullify the supernatural authority of the office by his human failings. Does that make sense to you?

By the way, only a successor pope has the authority on earth to judge a predecessor’s words and actions as having been worthy of excommunication. No other person has that power or authority from God. For our part, it comes down to resisting the errors of prelates who depart from revealed truth without turning bitter and twisted against the offenders. We pray for sinners, as Our Lord admonishes us, we don’t condemn them.

My goodness, Catholic priest, are you really a priest? You seem very bitter and judgemental. Why are you not out there saving souls? As for calling Athanasius such scurrilous names, not only is he clear minded, he is also charitable. Welcome back Athanasius!

Extreme Parkinson’s Disease didn’t force John Paul II to retire. In fact, when the Modernists tried to get him to retire, a dream they had long hoped to fulfill in order to undermine the Papacy, he responded with these words: “Christ did not come down from the Cross, neither will I come down from mine.” Pope Benedict XVI, on the otherhand, gave them exactly what they wanted, a papacy that’s just like any other job from which one retires at the appropriate age. It was the final piece in the puzzle of turning the Catholic Church from an autocratic/hierarchic body into a full blown democratic one complete with retiring staff.

Continuation – People in the martyred churches of Syria and China express total agreement with me and Fr. Kramer that Bergoglio is an infidel, apostate and apostate. The Curch of martyrs testifies against you hypocrites who acknowledge the infidel and apostate “Francis” as your “pope”. Benedict XVI is the pope of the Catholic Church. Francis Bergoglio id the pope of the apostate Conciliar Church.

Then I would suggest you go live in Syria or China, Catholic Priest. The East, after all, has always been quite accommodating to schism and schismatics. We’re a little less arrogant here in the West when it comes to deposing Popes!

Hey Hypocrite, If I go to China it will not be because they are welcoming schismstics like you followers of the false pope, but because their churches are martyred churches — something you obviously don’t understand. Those churches testify to their Catholic faith with their BLOOD, while you betray the Catholic faith like Judas by your obedience to the infidel and enemy of Christ, Bergoglio.

I’ve just read through all your comments and cannot quite believe what I’m reading. To think that a Catholic priest would act in such a way. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. There’s not one ounce of charity or fatherly concern in your posts. You present yourself as being very angry, bitter, surly and bad tempered. Your attitude will never win souls for God and His Church. Indeed, you do more harm than good.

Your arguments make no sense. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can see that. Your argument, and that of Fr Kramer, has been demolished within minutes.

Now, you have mentioned that you are retired due to ill health. I suggest that if you cannot behave in an appropriate way then you spend your retirement in prayer and silence. Not only are your crackpot ideas doing damage to the traditional cause, but your extremely unpleasant behaviour certainly is. In fact, you are being used as an instrument of the devil, similar to those Modernist priests.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion. I’m about to close the December threads but before I do, I want to thank Catholic Priest for doing what so many other priests fail to do, which is to enter the lion’s den. He’s taken some harsh criticism from our bloggers – all with the best of intentions, I know, of course – but since we’re embarking on a new year, I thought I’d try to leave Catholic Priest with this – I hope – encouraging thought:

Petrus described you as being “very angry, bitter, surly and bad tempered”

Take heart, Father – those very same words are often used to describe my (very good) self, when everyone knows that I’m really slim, glamorous, witty, intelligent, charitable, kind to a fault, and utterly humble… a soul, clearly, I often say, on the road to canonisation… 🙂

A happy new year, once again, to one and all – and let’s all pray hard in 2014 for…Pope Francis !

I think we should close this thread with a resolution to pray more fervently for Our Holy Father Pope Francis. The Sovereign Pontiff and Vicar of Christ. He needs our prayers. May we offer many rosaries for him.

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